


if only in a dream

by blindbatalex



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: (or does he???), Assorted Bruins players, Boston Bruins, M/M, a fic that's caught between crack and angst and fluff, bed sharing, brad is such a creeper, idk why i'm this way either, im still new to fandom please love me, patrice has a recurring dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 16:30:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13298778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/pseuds/blindbatalex
Summary: Being in love with a best friend you could never have is kind of alright actually, regardless of what the rom coms would have you believe. Not that there are any rom coms about hockey players pining for their infuriating and obnoxious and ridiculously sweet linemates. Patrice would know; he looked.





	if only in a dream

Being in love with a best friend you could never have is kind of alright actually, regardless of what the rom coms would have you believe. Not that there are any rom coms about hockey players pining for their infuriating and obnoxious and ridiculously sweet linemates. Patrice would know; he looked.

There are a couple of side effects though, still: the desire that courses through his body unbidden when Brad struts out of the showers, dripping and his cheeks still flushed from exertion; the memory of a night neither of them speak about that catches in his throat sometimes when he least expects it. But worst of all, there is his recurring dream.

Brad kisses him. 

It isn’t a wet dream though, no crushing of tongue and lip, fierce and desperate. It would be easier in a way if it was, because Brad presses his lips on Patrice’s skin - his temple, his forehead, sometimes the back of his hand - in the dream and the reverence in his touch, the love and the sheer longing there, hurts Patrice more than any of his impossible sexual fantasies ever could.

He has the dream when he falls asleep near Brad. On late flights on the road, on the rare occasion he dozes off on Brad’s couch during a movie marathon. That time when he was in the hospital and he was so out of it and it felt so real he had nearly woken Brad with his sniffles.

Patrice learns to try and avoid it though, sits next to Zee on the plane if he is tired, and then that’s alright too.

*

It’s past midnight when they make it to their hotel. Brad flings himself next to Patrice on the sofa in the lobby, declaring he could fall asleep right here and now, waiting for room keys and actual beds be damned. Knowing him, he probably could. 

“My shoulder is not your personal pillow you know, go sleep on Tuuks or something.” Patrice complains softly. Brad’s head is a familiar and welcome weight on his shoulder and there is no heat in his voice.

Tuukka gives him a dirty look from the opposing sofa where Anton is already draped across him like a particularly heavy shawl.

“Yeah but Tuuks is so pointy and sharp,” Brad murmurs, “you are softer” and Patrice lets him be, resisting an urge to to card a hand through his short hair.

*

Brad is a lot more alert fifteen minutes later when Coach Dean returns with room keys for everyone else and an explanation of how a pipe burst in Brad’s room, the hotel is full to capacity and the best they could do was to find him a room in a hotel across the city.

“Yeah but that’s like half an hour’s drive,” Brad whines, arms clasped at his chest. “It’s midnight. Can’t we send one of the rookies over instead? They have so much more energy.” He calls out to Charlie who gives him a look that can only be described as ‘fight me, bitch.’

The team is clustered in a semicircle around them now, everyone apparently more interested in the outcome of the current drama than sleep. This whole thing must be as strange to them as it is to Patrice because it’s almost always Brad who has done something wrong when a member of the coaching staff has to talk to him this late at night.

The coach tries his best to pacify. 

“I’m sorry, son,” he says, “I really don’t want to send you to the other end of the city on your own either, but unless someone wants to share his bed with you I’m afraid it’s the only way.”

There is a beat where no one says anything.

And then the group breaks into a mixture of whoops and whistles and who’s gonna open his bed to Marchy jokes.

Brad turns around to face them like he has indeed just had an excellent idea.

“Krej,” he says sweetly, wrapping an arm around Krej’s shoulders. “Remember those doughnuts I bought the other day?”

Krej gently removes Brad’s arm and ducks away with a _yeah, no_.

Zee tells him he snores.

Danton claims to kick anyone unfortunate enough to share a bed with him in his sleep. 

And they all disperse before long, each quietly retreating to his own room, until it’s just the coach Brad and Patrice left in the lobby.

 _Fragile masculinity at its finest,_ Patrice thinks. Either that or because Brad really snores loud enough to wake the dead when he is tired.

Brad is positively sulking when he declares that he will call a cab.

Patrice rolls his eyes.

He yanks the idiot’s carry-on bag and starts walking towards the elevators with a _come on then._

It’s not ideal, far from it, but he will be damned if he lets his stupid miserable friend go all the way across the city at this hour on his own.

Brad is beaming at him when he catches up. “Saint Patrice,” he says with a winning smile, “I knew I could always depend on you.”

 _And yet you asked Anton but not me,_ Patrice doesn’t say.

*

They have shared a bed before, of course. 

There was the time their plane hit awful turbulence - it must be a couple years ago now - its giant metal body creaking and shaking and threatening to come apart. 

Patrice had marvelled how calm Brad was through the whole ordeal; how he managed to raise his voice above the noise and chirp and joke and distract them all from what felt like might be their imminent doom.

He didn’t expect a knock on his door that night long after they made it safely to the ground - Brad huddled on the armchair in Patrice’s hotel room, hugging himself as he explained that he could not sleep.

Brad had fallen asleep tucked under his arm that night, his breath shuddering against Patrice’s chest for a long time before it evened out, the press of their bodies against one another grounding them both. “You ever wonder--” he had whispered, his face turned towards Patrice’s but never finished his question.

Patrice did wonder sometimes, almost always at night, almost always when he was alone.

It’s different now though, no close brush with mortality, no delirious ecstasy of having just won the Cup coursing through their veins, just run of the mill road trip exhaustion.

Brad dumps his bag unceremoniously by the door, strips down until he is standing in his undershirt and boxers, and makes his way under the covers. 

Patrice follows suit and in five minutes they are ready conk out for the night. They lie midway on their own halves of the bed, not sequestered to the very edges but with a respectable distance between them nonetheless.

Patrice half expects Brad to make a joke about how he is a serial cuddler or something but then again maybe not, considering.

(There is a morning when he wakes up, his forehead plastered onto Brad’s chest, Brad’s arm wrapped around his back. His thighs are sticky with dried cum and an epic hangover is hammering its way through his skull.)

(There is a morning when they are both so very young and the world is theirs, when Brad looks absolutely gorgeous in the morning light in his wrecked state and when they clear their throats and set about cleaning themselves up, not meeting the other’s eye.)

Brad rubs his foot against Patrice’s shin. His foot is cold against his bare skin. “Thank you for this, man” he says quietly, “you are a lifesaver.”

*

There it is again - what Patrice dreads and anticipates in equal measure. A hand - Brad’s hand - brushes the short locks of hair that are falling on his forehead, its touch gentle. Patrice finds himself leaning into the touch, craving it like he needs air.

Soft light falls against his closed eyes, caresses his face.

Any moment now his skin will light up with one of Brad’s tender kisses. Patrice can hear his heart beating that much faster at the thought. And if he is lucky his lips will never draw away this time, maybe. Always stay there against his temple where they belong.

A smile nudges at the corners of his lips. 

This, Patrice decides, is what heaven must be like, all warmth and gentle light and Brad.

The bed dips down around his shoulder as Brad shifts - he must be propping himself up on a hand or elbow next to him, his weight digging in against the mattress.

There is an intake of a breath, deep and slow and wistful.

The morning light. The mattress. Brad on the bed next to him. On the bed they are currently sharing.

A set of lips, soft and warm press against his temple, _as if afraid to wake him up_.

Wait.

Patrice opens his eyes and sure as day there Brad is propped up on his elbow, leaning down.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Brad jumps at the sound. He recoils back on the bed with a speed that’s nearly super-human. His mouth hangs open, a deer caught in the headlights.

Patrice is sitting up now, a flash of understanding and anger coursing through his veins.

A recurring dream of a physical sensation that only happens when he falls asleep near Brad. The heartache and the longing and the sheer denial he had to live with for years and all the while because he thought--

“You bastard - you have been doing this for years haven’t you?” Patrice asks. “Creeping up on me while I sleep?”

The hospital - the flights - there he was like a fool, aching after an impossible dream when the entire time this ridiculous stupid man--

“I--” Brad stammers, and he doesn’t need to finish his sentence. Doesn’t need to say anything. The red hot shame that has spread across his neck and cheeks more than answers the question for him.

“Why the fuck -- why the fuck do you only kiss me when I’m asleep?” Patrice spits out the words, his voice laced with venom that is surprising even to him. He can feel his stomach tie itself up in knots, can feel his heart beating in his ears.

“Look,” Brad says, trying desperately to regain his footing, “I am sorry, alright. I know what it looks like but I swear I didn’t mean anyth--” 

Brad stops. 

He looks at Patrice, his face caught up between panic and sheer surprise. His eyes are a maelstrom of anguish and anticipation and there is, in the way the edges of his eyebrows quirk up above his nose, a scared, quiet hope.

Patrice wants to punch him. After that night--he was so sure--

“Only.” Brad says. His voice, in contrast to everything else in the room, is perfectly calm. 

“Why do I _only_ kiss you when you are asleep?”

Patrice runs a hand through his face. The speech he has been telling himself for years, full of sensible cold rationality is once again repeating itself in his head.

_They are still teammates Brad is his best friend they are in the public eye what would the club say if they knew what if it blew up what if he lost Brad what then--_

His eyes snag on Brad’s hand clutching to the edge of the comforter on the far side. Patrice sees that it’s trembling.

All this time and all he had to do was ask. All Patrice had to do was ask. They have been so utterly, ridiculously stupid.

He takes in a deep breath.

“Yeah,” he says, makes the words a challenge he is levelling at Brad. “You heard what I said. Why do you _only_ kiss me when I’m asleep?”

Brad makes a strangled sound, caught between a chuckle and a breath exhaled in pure relief. 

Patrice never thought he’d see a bashful smile on Brad Marchand of all people; didn’t know the two concepts could coexist.

(And he looks gorgeous like this, with his mess of a bed head, his cheeks still flushed crimson and beaming at Patrice from the far side of the bed, shy like he can’t quite believe what he has heard.)

“Are you going to sit there looking shell shocked the entire morning or will you come and kiss me?” Patrice asks, raising an eyebrow, “this time while I am awake please?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer either, not really. He doesn’t let Brad say anything else. Just closes the distance between them and pulls Brad to him, crushing their lips together, finally.

*

It’s quick and it’s sloppy - the rolling desire to have all of Brad and have it now at odds with his need to map every inch of his body.

Brad digs his hands at the nape of his neck. Patrice tries to liberate him of his t-shirt without breaking the kiss and gets them both tangled in it. “Off,” he says in between pants, when he finally draws back to let Brad take it off himself. 

Brad tosses it aside and pushes Patrice down so that he is lying on his back on the bed and Brad is lying on top of him. He finds Patrice’s lips again and Patrice moans into the kiss when their erections brush against each other.

Distantly he is aware that they should get ready for breakfast.

But in this moment, with Brad’s breath hot and heavy against his, and with the gasp he draws out of Brad when he bites at his lower lip, well - for once Patrice can’t say he quite cares.

~*~

“You are late,” Krej observes astutely. Patrice sits down at the table, pulls a chair for Brad. Krej wiggles his eyebrows. “Had fun last night?”

“He kicked me,” Patrice says by way of explanation, pointing an accusatory spoon at Brad. This, for the record is true - Brad did accidentally kick him. It’s just that his teammates don’t need to know the exact and circumstances of the action just yet.

“It’s not that you are late, it’s that you are late and still immaculately dressed,” Tuukka observes from next to Krej like he didn’t care for Patrice’s explanation at all. His eyebrows are knit together in a frown as they always are when he is trying to puzzle something out. “Which means, you were both aware that you were running late while you were dressing up and styling your hair.” Next to him Brad is too busy inhaling his porridge to notice. “--which you wouldn’t do unless you were--”

Tuukka stops with his lips forming a worldless _oh._

Patrice shoots him a warning look, dread pooling in his stomach. 

Yes, oh.

Tuukka smiles then, and changes the subject with a nod in Patrice’s direction.

He doesn’t really stop stealing quick glances at Patrice and Brad throughout the day and smiling.

Patrice doesn’t think he does either.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I appreciate kudos and especially comments, which keep me going. I am still buzzing after our win last night and I'd die for these two!
> 
> Come find me on [tumblr](https://blindbatalex.tumblr.com/); I need more hockey mutuals and I love getting prompts - this fic was written in response to a "why do you only kiss me when I'm sleeping" prompt ask.
> 
> Also if one of you wants to write me Brad's POV in all this I'll love you forever.
> 
> EDIT: you need to read crash into me because not only does it have brad's pov but it's legit better than the original fic!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Crash Into Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16162544) by [Bluejay141519](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluejay141519/pseuds/Bluejay141519)




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